"Mormon" Doctrine Plain and Simple; Or, Leaves from the Tree of Life

by Charles W. Penrose

Until all this has been restored, Christ's work must continue. The earth must be cleansed from its corruptions. The elements must melt with fervent heat, and be purified from evil. Satan and his hosts must be banished and bound. Eden must blossom again as at first. The lion and the lamb must lie down together. The fig tree and the myrtle must flourish where the rank weeds grow. The whole race of Adam must be raised from the dead. The vail between earth and heaven must be removed. The knowledge and glory of God must cover the earth as the waters cover the deep, and the spirit of life and peace and light and joy must be poured out upon all flesh, until the whole creation vibrates with pleasure and responds with praise.

The ushering in of the great millennial day, a glimpse of which has been seen by all the holy prophets since the world began, with the sweet rest of earth and its inhabitants, is not, however, the completion of Christ's glorious work. His kingdom must not only be established from pole to pole and from shore to shore, but His saving power must penetrate to every lost soul of our race in, the regions of the damned.

A just judgment will be meted out to all. They who reject the gospel must suffer the penalty. Those who are found worthy of many stripes must receive their portion. The wicked will be turned into hell, with all the nations that forget God. Each condemned person will pay the uttermost farthing for his sins. Justice, tempered, not warped or thwarted, by mercy, will mete out to all their right deserts, "every man according to His works." The punishment is always existent, therefore it is eternal punishment. But each one who suffers, receives only his just portion thereof. Shall the murderer and the Sabbath-breaker, the adulterer and the thief, the drunkard and the profane, all merit the same doom? Would human courts proclaim such judgment? Shall man have more equity than God? When stern justice has claimed its own and filled its purpose, shall there be no place for sweet mercy?

While there is one soul of this race, willing and able to accept and obey the laws of redemption, no matter where or in what condition it may be found, Christ's work will be incomplete until that being is brought up from death and hell, and placed in a position of progress, upward and onward, in such glory as is possible for its enjoyment and the service of the great God.

The punishment inflicted will be adequate to the wrongs performed. In one sense the sinner will always suffer its effects. When the debt is paid and justice is satisfied; when obedience is learned through the lessons of sad experience; when the grateful and subdued soul comes forth from the everlasting punishment, thoroughly willing to comply with the laws once rejected; there will be an abiding sense of loss. The fullness of celestial glory in the presence and society of God and the Lamb are beyond the reach of that saved but not perfected soul, forever. The power of increase, wherein is dominion and exaltation, and crowns of immeasurable glory, is not for the class of beings who have been thrust down to hell and endured the wrath of God for the period allotted by eternal judgment.

But Jesus, the anointed, with His army of saviors bearing the Priesthood after the order of Melchisedec, will seek and save that which is lost until everything salvable is redeemed. Only those beings who have learned the law, received of the light of truth, tasted the sweets of the divine spirit, basked in the sunbeams of the heavenly glory, made covenant to serve the King of kings and received power to advance to the pinnacle, of exaltation, and then have turned away from the right, chosen evil rather than good, driven away the power and promptings of the Spirit of light and truth, sought to become a law unto themselves, imbrued their hands in the blood of innocence or, drinking in of the influence of that evil one, consented to and endorsed the slaying of the world's Redeemer, thus sinning against the Holy Ghost and becoming servants of Satan and sons of perdition, will be in their nature and status unredeemable, and therefore will remain "filthy still" and thus be unfit for a kingdom of any degree of glory. Those will go away with the devil and his angels into the outer darkness, beyond the spheres where flows the river of salvation and where blooms the tree of life. For them alone of Adam's race there is no repentance, for them alone is the second death, for them alone is the blackness of darkness forever.

When the work of Christ and His associate kings and priests unto God is finished, the saints of all the ages will be crowned with glory and receive their reward. They will be made rulers over many things. In the order of eternity, they will stand in the heavenly family organization, and all things will be theirs. Of their increase there will be no end. They will hold the key to all heights and depths. They will have power over all the elements, spiritual and corporeal. The incorruptible and fadeless riches will be theirs. They will mingle with the highest. They will gaze upon the face of the Eternal God and dwell in the presence of the sinless Son. Pain and sorrow, and trial and death will henceforth be only known in memory, to form the contrast needful to make their joy complete. Eternity with its boundless opportunities and unutterable bliss and intelligence and majesty will be before them without a barrier in the way, secure for them as to the Almighty Father himself. This is the celestial glory.

Those who were not numbered with the Saints of God in the flesh, but who received the gospel in the spirit; the good and honorable who were led astray by the designing; the class not fitted for the crowning glory of the celestial world nor worthy of the doom of the wicked, will also receive their portion. They will not attain to the gifts of increase and dominion and the fullness of the highest, but will enter into their rest, which shall be glorious. And though they reach not to the Father's fullness, they will receive the visits of the Son and of His associates in the celestial world, and enjoy rich blessings unspeakable in their greatness and perpetuity. They inherit the terrestrial glory.

Those who were cast down to the depths for their sins, who rejected the gospel of Jesus, who persecuted the saints, who reveled in iniquity, who committed all manner of transgressions except the unpardonable crime, will also come forth in the Lord's time, through the blood of the Lamb and the ministry of His disciples and their own repentance and willing acceptance of divine law, and enter into the various degrees of glory and power and progress and light, according to their different capacities and adaptabilities. They cannot go up into the society of the Father nor receive of the presence of the Son, but will have ministrations of messengers from the terrestrial world, and have joy beyond all expectation and the conception of uninspired mortal minds. They will all bow the knee to Christ and serve God the Father, and have an eternity of usefulness and happiness in harmony with the higher powers. They receive the telestial glory.

Thus the inhabitants of earth, with the few exceptions that are beyond the power of redemption, will eventually be saved. And the globe on which they passed their probation, having kept the law of its being, will come into remembrance before its Maker. It will die like its products. But it will be quickened again and resurrected in the celestial glory. It has been born of the water, it will also be born of the Spirit. Purified by fire from all the corruptions that once defiled it, developed into its perfections as one of the family of worlds fitted for the Creator's presence, all its latent light awakened into scintillating action, it will move up into its place among the orbs governed by celestial time, and shining "like a sea of glass mingled with fire," every tint and color of the heavenly bow radiating from its surface, the ransomed of the Lord will dwell upon it; the highest beings of the ancient orbs will visit it; the garden of God will again adorn it; the heavenly government will prevail in every part; Jesus will reign as its King; the river of life will flow out from the regal throne; the tree of life, whose leaves were for the healing of the nations, will flourish upon the banks of the heavenly stream, and its golden fruit will be free for the white-robed throng, that they may eat and live forever. This perfected earth and its saved inhabitants will then be presented to the Eternal Father as the finished work of Christ, and all things will be subject unto the Great Patriarch, Architect, Creator, Ruler, the Almighty, to whom be obedience and reverence and praise in all the countless worlds that shine as jewels in His universal crown!